The Great Toy Purge of 2014

We cleaned out my parents’ house this summer. As my dad put it, my parents were “savers.” I have another word for it, that starts with H and ends with OARDERS.

This has inspired me to do some cleaning in my own house. God forbid anything would happen to me and someone else would have to go through my crap. And with that inspiration, the kids and I had The Great Toy Purge of 2014 last week.

We moved into our current house six years ago, and in the time since I’ve done a few toy purges, both upstairs in the kids’ rooms and downstairs in our family room. Most recently last winter I got rid of a bunch of baby toys that Emma didn’t use anymore. You know, because she’s six.

Last week we got rid of a whole bunch more. Games, puzzles and what not. Some cars, some robots, a lot of boy type play-clothes. (When you’re 9 and 11, the only time you dress up is Halloween.) The Transformers went, as did a cheap-o train set, some Rescue Heroes, and a bunch of Happy Meal crap. Emma got rid of some baby dolls she didn’t play with, more Happy Meal crap, and we also organized her Barbies.

We cleared out two full four-shelf bookshelves, enough for our DVDs. The shelves where the DVDs were are now Lego display areas. Emma’s Barbie areas are organized into dolls, furniture and clothes/shoes. Plus, we found a bunch of American Girl clothes that had traveled downstairs some how. Everything is very nicely organized and so very clean.

It surprised me, too, that the kids were so willing to part with stuff. Mostly the boys- but they are getting older, and they know that they mostly only play with Lego and Star Wars figures. They would happily play with their millions of Lego all day long, which makes me happy–less toys equals less clutter.

There’s one more thing that we have to do–organize the Lego instructions. When we go school shopping, I plan on buying a big three-ring binder and some page covers. Each Lego instruction book will go into a cover- and those will all go into the binder. No more Lego book messes!

I would say The Great Toy Purge of 2014 went very well. If I could convince Emma to have The Great Stuffed Animal Purge of 2014 we’d be all set…

2 Responses to The Great Toy Purge of 2014

I’m totally with you on this, Essie! Sounds a lot like what we’ve been doing here. One of the first projects in our Great Clean and Purge Project was the baby toys in Zilla’s playroom – like you said because, you know, she’s six. I was also amazed at her willingness and eagerness to have a child who was less fortunate enjoy them. Hooray! I have yet to get her to toss the Happy Meal crap, though…our one point of disagreement!
We did a lot of moving and relocationg and appropriating furniture for different purposes.
Feels great, doesn’t it?Lisa @ The Meaning of Me recently posted..The Great Clean and Purge Project – Final Recap